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07.22.04
 By Bernd Zipper and Peter Kleinheider
Apple's Mac OS X makes broad use of Adobe's PDF technology. It is the first example to date of an operating system that contains an actual Adobe Normalizer embedded as a system component. A careful analysis shows that Apple hasn't yet delivered on the exciting promise of an operating system built around PDF.
For the world's publishers, Mac OS X is a blessing -- no question about that. Publishers have never had an operating system that is this fast and this publishing-oriented. OS 9 users may not want to hear it (in some cases, they may have to be dragged kicking and screaming to OS X), but they, too, will soon learn to appreciate the advantages of OS X. |
A few months ago, Apple publicly introduced the latest operating system release, version 10.3, code-named "Panther." It no longer relies on Display PostScript for its display format (as did the NeXT operating system -- here one clearly sees the influence of Steve Jobs) but rather on PDF technology. PDF is one of the internal graphics formats; it is used in the "Quartz" module of the OS, which is responsible for 2D graphics.
This has the important result that it is no longer necessary to have any additional software to create and display PDFs. But don't jump to any conclusions; as we'll discuss below, this capability is largely irrelevant for printing and publishing applications.
Another major innovation of OS X compared with other operating systems is how closely it dovetails with the integrated ColorSync color-management technology. ColorSync provides support for accurate color display and for working with ICC profiles.
Great for Viewing, Not Output
Even though the Apple PDF applications depart from the familiar working methods of Adobe's family of programs, many users from the publishing industry will likely depend more heavily on the Apple-supplied technology than on Acrobat Reader. The OS X viewer, called Preview, opens even enormous PDF files very rapidly. Preview facility is much superior to Acrobat when all you want is simple viewing and navigation through PDF files. For example, Preview requires only 2-3 seconds to launch, and it can open a 200-page PDF document in just 2 more seconds. Immediately after that, the full-text search facility is available. It works without indexing, but it is nearly as fast as the index-based Acrobat search. A list of hits (with links to the corresponding points in the document) appears within 10 seconds after entry of the search string. Integrated tools for the selection of text and graphics permit the program to be used as an "intelligent" intermediate format for the rapid transfer of information between files. And none of this requires generating an index in advance.
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After a normal Acrobat installation in OS X, Acrobat always launches as the viewer for PDF files. If you want Preview to be the default instead, you have to let the system know via the Get Info dialog box. Note that it is now necessary (in contrast to OS 9) to have the file name end with ".pdf." Not every element of a PDF file is correctly displayed in Preview. Transparencies, though, are shown correctly.
While Apple deserves to be complimented for this powerful little Preview tool, its choice of which PDF specification to support is less praiseworthy. While OS X 10.3 does support PDF up through version 1.4, including transparency, many features of PDF are not directly supported. This means that these functions are not displayed, and they do not appear in the printed PDF either. Missing features include annotation, video, and sound, as well as many functions that are urgently needed by publishers. One looks in vain for support for transfer curves and OPI comments, for example. The settings for the overprinting function are missing, as is support for Illustrator's overprint mode. Trimbox, artbox, and bleedbox settings are missing, as are references to external files, Xobjects, alternate images, and XML tags. Even the use of JavaScript and form fill-in is missing.
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*Previously published at CreativePro.com
About the Author:
Bernd Zipper is a business and technology consultant specializing in PDF, new media and cross-media publishing projects. His also the publisher of the German news site pdfnews.de. He can be reached at bernd.zipper@zipcon.de.
Peter Kleinheider is a workflow and PDF expert from Austria. As a writer for various industry magazines and for pdfnews.de, he imparts professional knowledge based on practical experience. He is also an expert in workflow automation and provides consulting and training services. He can be reached at peter@inpetto.de.
Read this newsletter at: http://www.macpronews.com/2004/0722.html |
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